A Great Neck doctor was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for illegally prescribing oxycodone without a legitimate medical purpose and defrauding health insurers, federal prosecutors said.
Dr. Roya Jafari-Hassad was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown in federal court in Central Islip.
In addition to prison time, Brown imposed a $150,000 fine and ordered Jafari-Hassad to pay $152,765 in restitution.
Jafari-Hassad was convicted at trial in December 2024 of eight counts of prescribing oxycodone pills without a legitimate medical purpose, and she later pleaded guilty in April 2025 to health care fraud.
“Dr. Jafari-Hassad used her medical practice to deal drugs, a disgraceful betrayal of her doctor’s oath to do no harm,” Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. He said the sentence holds her accountable for “capitalizing on her patients’ dangerous opioid addictions to enrich herself.”
Frank A. Tarentino III, associate chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Northeast Region, said the defendant “turned her medical office into a modern-day pill mill,” and Naomi Gruchacz, the special agent in charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s Office of Investigations in the New York region, said her illegal prescriptions “contributed to fueling the opioid epidemic.”
According to evidence presented at trial and court filings, Jafari-Hassad operated medical offices in Great Neck, Forest Hills, Queens and Manhattan. From January 2019 through May 2022, she charged patients hundreds of dollars in cash in exchange for monthly oxycodone prescriptions, prosecutors said.
Sometimes the prescriptions were issued without an in-person appointment, with payment information collected and prescriptions refilled immediately, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors said she made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the cash payments.
Authorities also said Jafari-Hassad submitted false claims to Medicare and private insurers for medical services that were not provided and received reimbursement for procedures she did not perform.
